


The Riposte

by HastaLux



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Because you can't prove otherwise, Big Dramatic Costume Change, Body Modification, Canon Compliant, Extremely Competent Hux, M/M, POV Armitage Hux, Post Rise of Skywalker, Post-Canon, The Force Does Things, The Force Ships It, Unintentional Body Modification, or something along those lines, original droid character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HastaLux/pseuds/HastaLux
Summary: If he’d still been on theFinalizer,he would have had more options. He knows that ship like the back of his hand. That’s probably why Ren insisted he move with Ren to theSteadfast,and then ordered him to functionally serve as an ornament just behind Pryde, in reach of authority but with no power and no responsibilities of note. If he was meant to feel stifled and impotent, congratulations to them, the maneuver had been a resounding success.But that had been foolish too. If he’d had something to do he wouldn’t have had nearly so much time to plan.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 100
Kudos: 466





	The Riposte

**Author's Note:**

> CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER.
> 
> Seriously, I don't think I can emphasize that enough, don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled on several major aspects of the movie. DO read this if you wanted to sort out how one particular moment for Hux and maybe a few other things could work with a more expanded story, because that's what we're doing here. This work will cover the events of the movie and a little bit after.

There’s a flash of light and a blinding sense of pain as Hux feels it sizzle, lifting him from his feet, the world around him almost slowing as his body prepares for the inevitable.

In a way, Hux is grateful Pryde took the shot himself. The others would have probably gone for the head, and then where would he be? 

He isn’t surprised, not really. Pryde hadn’t even bothered with an interrogation, which was considerate of him, and also extremely stupid. Any spy should be interrogated. Hux should know. It’s sloppy work. They should have taken him and demanded to find out how he contacted the Resistance, how he snuck his information out, and what exactly he told them, but Pryde is flawed like their supposed Supreme Leader in that regard.

The man can’t see beyond his own goals. If there’s a chance to rip out a thorn in his side, he’d do it in a second without considering the possibility for poison slipping into his veins.

Actually, it’s a pity Hux never got to try poison on Pryde. Kylo Ren had just drank the wine he was offered and shrugged it off with a glance that was almost amused. He never acknowledged it, neither of them did, but Hux likes to think Kylo enjoyed the theatre of his futile efforts, overdramatic child that he is. He would have liked to see if the Force offered the same protection to Sith bootlickers as it does to those who actually wield its powers.

So when he’s launched across the command deck, Hux feels almost relieved, because it means one of his plans has worked. He lets out a low huff that is his sole acknowledgement of his second time being shot today, because it’s that or laugh and the laugh would definitely get him shot a third time, in the head. The pain is excruciating, but he only has to bear it for a second. A single prick of of pain digs into the skin within the wound in his leg, plasteel and metal followed by liquid that burns as it enters, and then, blissfully, Armitage Hux enters the most dangerous phase of his gambit.

He passes out.

***

He dreams of Starkiller.

It’s strange that at the time he’d just thought himself efficient and useful, a swell of pride in his chest.  _ I made this me. Me. This is MINE.  _ He hadn’t realized until it was dashed so soundly into the snowy caverns of Crait that what he’d felt was  _ hope. _ That this time, maybe,  _ maybe _ , it would be  _ enough _ , and he could–

Well. He never got that far.

He’d expected to feel pride, after. Glory to himself and the First Order, indisputable proof that he had  _ earned  _ his position after years of being scoffed at for being Brendol’s son, then being Snoke’s pet General when he should have been seen as a trusted advisor, as the conduit through which lesser officers might have their words reach Snoke’s ear, if only Hux found them worthy.

But it didn’t matter what he did, or how brilliant he was. The one thing that would have finally earned him some damn  _ respect _ blew up in his face. He still remembers the scant seconds of pride he’d felt watching the laser fire, then returning to the corridor back into the base proper intending to watch the scanners and admire his work as the offers of unconditional surrender from every other inhabited world rolled in.

The screams nearly knocked him to the floor.

He found himself wavering into the wall from the force of them, despair washing over him as real as if he was the one dying. They lingered as he rose, thinking perhaps he’d finally overdone it with the stims, and echoed behind him as he stumbled back toward command in time to find out the Resistance was actually  _ attacking _ them. After all that, after he’d ripped the heart of the Republic and they should be falling over and begging for mercy, they still  _ wouldn’t stop. _

Hux is not unused to pain. He’d worked through the screams in his ears that came from nowhere and the vague hum of confused panic creeping at the back of his skull, refusing to let it win. He wasn’t a child anymore, he didn’t need to hide in closets for fear of his father and his father’s friends, or wonder what example of him Brendol would make to his precious stormtrooper children to prove that he did not play favorites with blood, only with skill. Hux had ages to learn to set pain aside for patience.

Even evacuating, he’d managed to track down blasted Kylo Ren simply because Snoke asked him to and Snoke must know if Hux had to rescue Ren that it is  _ Hux  _ who deserves his respect for carrying out this task successfully, not his temperamental apprentice. He’d been loading Ren into the transport when the dark-clad idiot had grabbed him by the jaw. “You felt them.”

“What?”

“The dying. You felt it.” 

Hux held his gaze. He had no intention of showing how unnerved he was, even if Kylo Ren was bleeding on him. “The… screaming? That’s something of your Force nonsense, is it?”

“Every living thing is… connected,” Ren wheezed as Hux finally forced him to sit down. “The Force. It touches all of it. Even those who cannot feel it.”

“So you say.” 

“You opened yourself to it. When you killed them. Their deaths are tied to you. A connection. So you felt it.” A noise came out of Ren that might be a laugh or his lungs collapsing, it’s hard to tell. “One moment of connection with the Force, something people would kill for, and you get  _ death.” _

Hux didn’t panic. That part of his brain had been thoroughly silenced before he turned ten, he leaned in, hissing inches away from Ren’s sundered face. “I created the most lethal machine this galaxy has ever seen. I don’t need your ridiculous  _ Force. _ ”

Ren laughed, blood trickling from his mouth. “You can’t live without it. No one can.” They’d landed by then, medics rushing to drag Ren away as the ship pulled into hyperspace, running away from his imploding creation below, away from the returning rise of screams drifting through his mind. He’d recognized some of these, men and women he’d left below, and he punched the wall just to move the pain from his mind to his hand.

And then Ren is standing there, staring at him, and Hux knows it must be a dream because when this had actually happened, when Starkiller had been freshly destroyed, Ren hadn’t come back to interrupt him when he pulled every last one of the stims from the transport’s med kit, already open since he’d had to press a bacta patch to Ren’s face, and stuck them all in his great coat to take with him to the bridge. Ren’s face is mostly healed, but his eyes are dark, a well of anger and sadness. “You’re connecting again, aren’t you.”

Hux nods, though he can’t tell whether it’s his own mind he’s talking to or Ren’s distant reach, present even here. “Maybe.”

“Who died this time, Hux?” Ren steps closer, and Hux is tempted to reach out and pull him closer, just to have something real to hang on to.

If any of this even is real.

“Who died, Hux?” 

Ren exhales, and for a second Hux can feel the brush of air against his face.

“Was it you?”

***

He wakes in the officer’s mortuary, breathing hard for a while until he can successfully remind his body that he’s supposed to be here, that he’s not still on the  _ Finalizer, _ that Starkiller Base is long gone. Everything  _ hurts _ but he remains, for now, alive, even if he’s shaking from the combination of drugs in his system and the uncomfortable sensation in his leg wound from where he’d rigged the dosing system. 

Hux can’t promise he won’t be a little smug about that, but it’s not as though there’s anyone around to care. He’d written the new orders for the process himself, ostensibly to organize the systems for an officer’s death after Supreme Leader Ren insisted on flinging whoever had most recently displeased him into the walls. Not all of them proved quite as resistant to damage as Hux is, and when he’d presented it to Pryde and the rest he maintained an aura of exasperation that he was being forced to manage Ren’s tantrums, still. 

_ The body is to be placed in officer mortuary cold storage for up to one cycle. The officer’s duty rota and assignments must be redistributed first: our chief directive is, as always, the efficient attention to the duties of the First Order, even if some may be in mourning. (If any mourn too noticeably, send them to reconditioning.) Secondly, the officer’s quarters must be cleaned and readied for new usage. Their possessions must be thoroughly inventoried and redistributed: uniforms to be cleaned, repaired, and allotted to rising officers. Any personal effects must be reviewed by a superior officer.  _

_ Hah.  _ Much luck to them with that. Hux had made sure his quarters contained a few things that should mark a delay in anyone coming to view his corpse, mostly in the way of very good tea and whiskey, very tempting treats for anyone who thinks they can simply pocket something for themselves.

If they’re  _ very _ lucky, they won’t sample the poisoned ones first.

_ The body shall be dealt with last. If necessary, personal effects on the body shall be removed prior to funerary ejection, but they must be left until this time in the unlikely event an inquiry into the cause or nature of death is required.  _

He eases his monomolecular blade from his sleeve and carefully presses open the small door beside his head. No one is assigned here regularly, it’s only a place one goes to out of necessity, and he’d been studiously reviewing the entry logs since he’d decided this was what must happen to ensure no one else made a habit of popping in. But it still pays to be cautious.

If he’d still been on the  _ Finalizer _ , he would have had more options. He knows that ship like the back of his hand. That’s probably why Ren insisted he move with Ren to the _ Steadfast _ , and then  _ ordered _ him to functionally serve as an ornament just behind Pryde, in reach of authority but with no power and no responsibilities of note. If he was meant to feel stifled and impotent, congratulations to them, the maneuver had been a resounding success.

But that had been foolish too. If he’d had something to  _ do _ he wouldn’t have had nearly so much time to plan.

He wriggles out of the tube, for once glad he has never been blessed with much in the way of a broader muscle structure. The uniform jacket comes off, a hole in the middle of it, and he inspects the armorweave wrapped tunic he’d had on below, lightly singed but still intact. The bruise where the bolt had struck would be impressive, but it certainly wouldn’t kill him. His father had given his wayward favorite Cardinal a cloak of it as a gift, and he’d offered the same to Phasma as a gift when she earned her position with Brendol’s blood. If any of them had actually cared for the troopers they would have made the clothing under their armor from it, as the Mandalorians did, but they didn’t. Stormtroopers were expendable, that’s why they had numbers instead of names. 

Ah, well. More for Hux.

He limps toward the furthest cold storage tube, one with a flickering  _ Maintenance Required _ light that never seemed to be on anyone’s rota to fix, thanks to Hux’s hard work in making sure that it was never, ever a priority on anyone’s list (Pryde really ought to learn to better protect his internal systems from skimmers). The nanodroids are swimming in his blood, trying to fix his leg, which feels vaguely itchy as they carry out their work. Modified NM-Ks purloined from his own engineering research, or what was left of it, ones he’d altered to work on flesh instead of electronics, or so he hopes. It’s not as though he’d had much chance to try them previously. He’d wrapped their cartridge into his leg bandage, having trained them to deliver enough drugs to his system to drop his heart rate below a scannable level upon sensing a blaster impact, just in case anyone happened to check, and to begin cellular repair upon sensing the exact temperature of the cold storage unit. Hux smiles thinly.  _ Never say I am not thorough. _

Inside the other cold storage tube the bundle he’d packed is still there. One greatcoat, carefully stripped of all insignia, primarily for warmth. Space is cold, after all, and he’s taking a gamble on whether he can get a ship that has heat in any form that isn’t just warming himself on the running engine. He trades his officer’s breeches with their too-obvious flare in the hip for slim black armorweave pants and a white armorweave jacket with a triple-layered hood that once served as an Imperial Science Officer’s cloak. He’d had a droid stitch both together in his quarters (followed by an immediate memory wipe, even though the work was excellent). He keeps his boots, they’ll blend in fine once they have a bit of dust on them. It’s still better armor than he’s worn in years. First Order officers have always been expendable too, but  _ Hux _ isn’t. Not anymore. 

His cane is leaning against the wall– perhaps they hadn’t known what to do with it– and he takes that too. Hard plasteel can do a fair bit of damage if someone doesn’t have time to stop it from hitting them in the face. 

He also still needs it to walk with any speed, not that he’d admit it if anyone was around to ask. Nanodroids can only work so fast.

Shoving over a pile of Final Order crates set in the room to sort an officer’s clothes and effects before their body is dropped into the burn of their engines, he grits his teeth through the pain as he lifts the panel and reveals the ventilation system below. Maybe it was a good thing the former stormtrooper shot him in the leg after all, otherwise crawling would be more difficult. At least this way he can pull himself forward and let his leg mostly rest behind him.

The cover slides after him, and the last traces of General Hux are left neatly folded in the crates, bloody, singed, and with a small explosive charge carefully armed in the belt. He’d prototyped it to switch with Kylo Ren’s tracker but hadn’t had the chance to test it before Ren bisected Snoke and started removing the trackers and leaving them in various places for Hux to find for his own amusement. Hux had worn it into the bridge as a very final contingency plan if they had ended up sending him to the brig instead of shooting him outright, because they were unlikely to strip his uniform right away if they put him in the brig and at least then he’d have the option of seeing if he could blow the door off. 

Maybe he’d be lucky and Pryde would come to see the disposal of his corpse himself. Then he could see how well Hux’s “useless little toys” work for himself.

Hux can only hope.

***

The mortuary cold storage for officers had been moved from a small space close to the medbay to a larger storage room near the aft hangers as a part of Hux’s updated plans. Ostensibly this was to increase the efficiency of disposal, and with Kylo Ren’s increasingly volatile tendancies no one questioned that perhaps it might also serve if a walking corpse wished to abscond with a ship.

Part of him has to credit the FN-2187 and Dameron for the idea. Their flailing about with the TIE fighter had shown an alarming lack of security on the  _ Finalizer, _ but it also proved a valuable example of what would and would not be obvious to anyone watching.

Aft Hanger Epsilon 6 is their least active bay, housing ships due for a maintenance rota and confiscated vessels. Confiscated vessels are useful for spy missions, but the Final Order is less interested in those because they have planet destroying weapons on every last one of their destroyers, and what use does anyone have for spies when they can simply blow up anything that inconveniences them? Ren’s dark eyes had watched him so closely when Pryde showed off their power, all of the tech they’d developed sitting for years in the depths of space above a planet that seemed to be made entirely of Sith hatred. Hux suspected Ren wanted him to be  _ jealous _ of all that power that he hadn’t had a hand in, that he’d want credit for all the destruction they would cause.

He didn’t.

There had been a singular goal with Starkiller. One monster, one strike. That should have been enough. Starkiller wasn’t meant to tear through the galaxy until there wasn’t a planet left in it, it was a deterrent. A threat.  _ Don’t make me use it, you saw what it did. _ And it should have been Hux’s hand at the control, deciding when enough was enough, but he’d only ever intended to fire it  _ once _ . 

But an entire fleet? A herd of Generals, of men and women like Pryde and those they raised in zealotry out in the dark? They wouldn’t leave a single planet left.

Hux might be a monster, but at least he had been aiming for  _ peace,  _ for a sense of unity under the watchful eye of the First Order and a firm ruling hand.

These creatures wanted the  _ end. _

He only mentioned Ren to the former trooper when he’d assisted their flight of the  _ Steadfast  _ because he doesn’t think they’d understand. The Resistance mistakes chaos for freedom, but they can grasp envy and jealousy. So let them think that jealousy is why he did what he did, if they must. But outing Ren in his missives and knowing the girl is as begrudgingly linked to Ren as he is to her meant they would follow. They would find Exegol. And following Ren meant they would make their way to the Final Order fleet hiding in Exegol’s atmosphere. 

Two porgs, one stone.

He watches from the grate over the bay for a time, cataloging the number of mechanics and their movements. The bay door is closed, so they must be in hyperspace, which means they’ve left Kijima. He grimaces. Perhaps he’d been asleep longer than he intended. That might have been a result of weaning himself off the stims–his body still craved the boost they offered, but sleep had been coming easier after he pushed through the withdrawal several cycles ago (far easier to do when he had nothing on his schedule other than meetings he wasn’t expected to speak at and daily duties that consisted entirely of standing about letting Pryde sneer at him while Ren went off chasing whatever it was he thought he so desperately needed). 

This… complicates matters. He’d been hoping to slip out while they were still near useful planets, and if they’ve gone back to Exegol it’s not as if there’s a planet he can just drop on to. Not only is it in the Unknown Regions but he’d be escaping the  _ entire damn fleet _ instead of just the  _ Steadfast. _

Somewhere Edrison Peavey is laughing at him as he carries out the  _ Finalizer’s _ repairs, he’s sure of it.

He curls into himself in the vent, thinking, his body aching for more rest or possibly food, though he’d managed to more or less turn off the normal identifiers for  _ hunger _ during his officer training. There must be a way to plan this out. 

There always is.

***

On the  _ Finalizer _ , he’d felt more in control. 

He walked through the halls with authority, even when he had to deal with Peavey at his back. He’d always been certain Peavey was assigned to him by High Command to punish one of them, he just wasn’t sure which one it was. Peavey hadn’t enjoyed serving under him any more than Hux liked having him there, an old Imperial amongst the young guard. There had been so many of them once. Old men, old women. His father’s friends, mostly dead now. The ones who’d laughed and agreed when Brendol said he was weak, when Brendol beat him in front of them because he had the audacity to be a person and not a tool. As a child he’d thought it was a failing in himself, a failing that he strived to correct. 

But he learned. He became  _ patient. _

By the time his father’s body was disintegrating from the toxins in his system, he’d learned nothing he did was ever going to be enough to please the man or the others of his ilk. Survival is his only victory, and he is still winning that war. Brendol is gone, so many of his contemporaries are gone, lost to hubris and poor planning, but he’d been assigned Peavey anyway.

When Ren told him he would report to Pryde, Hux didn’t have to doubt why. That was definitely a punishment for Hux alone. Maybe Pryde suggested it, maybe it was for Ren’s own amusement, because Ren always told him, cryptically, that he preferred it when Hux kept _close,_ not that he ever explained what exactly he meant. Which one of them engineered it didn’t matter. 

That hadn’t been the first crack though. More like the final breaking point of Hux’s last tethers to his duty.

The first came even before Starkiller.

It was the pilot, strangely. Dameron. He’d proven remarkably resistant to interrogation, and Hux found himself growing a surprising sense of respect for his sheer audacity, for laughing at them when they tried to make him talk and telling them over and over what a fucking good pilot he was instead of giving anything up. Then Ren had rushed in and ripped out what he wanted, making the pilot scream instead of laugh, and for the first time Hux felt a creeping sense of discomfort in the back of his mind.

If he’d been more interested in his own emotions, he might have called it… empathy.

He didn’t like it.

Then the stormtrooper ran off with the pilot and Hux knew his mouth was working to defend  _ his _ program to Ren, and a voice in the back of his mind whispered that he  _ knew _ the FN 2100 line would be roughly ten or so years younger than him. He hadn’t trained that particular trooper at all, not really, not until he was much older and much more ingrained. His father molded that trooper, and Hux knows he has no reason to defend that particular legacy.

Except that he wasn’t defending the legacy at all, was he?

He was defending the same program that sculpted  _ him _ , because his mind could not allow the possibility of a flaw in his own carefully crafted system _.  _ If the trooper could turn away from them and defect, did that mean–could that mean–that Hux could be defective as well, that he might contain an equal possibility of….

Hux had no intention of breaking. Even after Starkiller, bearing his way through the echoes of death in his head, he’d simply rammed stim after stim into his veins so he could stay awake through the chase to Crait and  _ get on with it. _ He had to. Survival was paramount. 

The fleet shattered around them, and he lived. Snoke died, and he lived, though that had been dangerous too. He still doesn’t know why he hesitated. One shot. One, and he would have been free of Ren, but part of him had still clung on to the idea that maybe, just maybe, the could keep as they were, equal in their separate spheres, dangerous to each other, but balanced. Always balanced. Even when the Force had bent around his throat, he’d thought  _ just this once, he’s angry, he’s angry about Snoke and the girl and he doesn’t really mean it. _

He’d realized how wrong he’d been when Ren shattered three of his ribs on Crait.

That shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but he’d thought, for all of their rivalry, that they at least stood together in this one way. That they both knew what it was like to suffer. That even if it were him in charge, he wouldn’t have hurt Ren like that, not like everyone else who’d harmed him before. Perhaps it was too optimistic to hope Ren saw things the same way. Instead he’d turned out like all the others. Just like Hux’s father. That’s why Hux vowed to kill him too. 

Ren’s steps walk through the back of his mind again. His face is strangely mended. It makes him look younger, somehow. Softer. Not the man Hux knows, not really, even when he’d first joined them full of anger that spilled from him with every breath. This version is far more at peace. “You could have shot me, then. And a million times since, if you really meant it.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I don’t need your  _ thanks,” _ he growls at nothing but the voices in his head. “Go  _ away _ , Ren.”

***

Hux hadn’t meant to fall asleep, though his body is less sore in some ways. In others it’s far worse– his frame is too tall to be falling asleep in ductwork. 

“Shit.”

How long had it been? If anyone had been to the mortuary they’d know exactly how he slipped out. They could be following him right now. “Bollocks.”

_ And  _ he’s starving. 

“Ugh.” Stomach growling, he shimmies along the vents, mentally mapping out where a synthesizer would likely be on this level. They’d have one close to the hanger for emergencies that forced the crew out of rota with only brief breaks, and for efficiency’s sake it was likely near a refresher and a triage medical kit….

He finds it quickly, watching through gaps in the plasteel as two mechanics take an agonizingly long time eating and talking about, from what he can tell, an old holo show that he remembers as an authorized entertainment of the Empire. It must be one of the only holos that made it out here with whatever the Final Order had assembled themselves from. Human heroes, alien enemies, and the humans worked for a benevolent ruler who needed their help keeping the galaxy in line. His own propaganda had never been so insipid. He was upfront and clear about what was expected in the Order and why, he didn’t need to rely on tricks that insulted the intelligence of his audience. Brendol’s friends had all loved the old shows, of course, but that was because they were vapid idiots who loved anything that made themselves feel superior, even if it was a thinly veiled metaphor on a holo.

Once the mechanics leave, complaining about whichever TIE pilot it is they have to run repairs for  _ again _ , he uses his dagger to rip out the screws of the vent and drop, less soundlessly than he’d like. His leg aches, but he still has the cane to support him as he sets the refresher to run several days rations of high-nutrient bars. He can’t rely on any of the ships in this hanger to have a system that works, let alone one that works for humans, so bars it is. 

He’s loading the pockets of his greatcoat when there’s a whirring noise behind him.

His dagger swings and stops, millimeters from carving through a repair droid’s central optical unit. It burbles at him with a dismayed tone and he jumps back just in time to avoid a shock from its electro-welder. “Stand down. Officer mandate sixty-three alpha.”

The droid twitches as a pulse ripples from its inhibitor chip force it to stop in place. Hux surveys it. It’s an old unit, an R5 series by the looks of things, though modified for greater maintenance work. Like the rest of the R-series, however, R5s were originally built as astromechs, and as much as he’s sure he could run his own hyperdrive calculations, a droid would probably do it faster. Besides, he’d always liked droids more than people. Programming has always been easier to trust, Hux knows where he stands when it’s literally coded into their systems. “You’re an R5 unit, yes? You may answer. Quietly.”

The droid chirps, obedient though it doesn’t sound pleased about it. “ _ R5-S6.” _

“S6? I knew an Essex, once. A corporal, I think. Are you called that?”

_ “Sometimes.” _

“Okay. Are you an astromech unit?”

_ “It is in my programming but is not my current designation.” _

“And what is your current designation?”

_ “Mechanical repair.” _ The droid sounds almost mournful, which is interesting to Hux because it implies that the inhibitor chip is meant to keep it doing work it doesn’t want to do.

“Would you prefer to do something other than repair work?”

_ “I do not have a choice in type of work.” _

“Well, let’s talk about that. You see, I’m planning on taking one of those ships and leaving, and if you’re willing to tell me which of them actually work and run a few hyperdrive calculations for me, then I’m happy to remove that chip and let you off at whatever planet you like.”

The droid stars at him, its light flickering in a way that Hux thinks must mean it’s a bit skeptical. “ _ Free?” _

“Free. I can even make sure you go to a spaceport or something like that, if you’d like to do astromech work–”

_ “Medical.” _

“You want to do medical?” Hux supposes it’s not that unusual, he has a vague memory of some R5 units in his childhood, and Brendol telling him the whole line was bloody useless, just like him, the best they could do with the waste of a memory core was watching life support. The echo of his father’s words makes him instinctually like the droid even more, because really,  _ fuck _ Brendol. “Certainly. Did you work in medical before? With the Empire?”

_ “Death Star. Stabilized during evacuation of Emperor. Very thrilling.” _

Hux blinks. “Come again?”

_ “Sixteen K-series sacrificed to reach reactor core and retrieve body.” _

He blinks again. The emperor. Palpatine. Ren’s new Sith master, no matter what Ren said about meaning to kill him. Which means this droid knows how he survived the last time, and  _ hadn’t been wiped since before the end of the war. _ The accumulated memory alone, all sorts of data on flight paths to the Unknown Regions and Imperial strongholds, even if it’s old… that could be all the bargaining chip he needs to ensure that perhaps the Resistance will at least let him make a run for it in peace. “Alright. I think I can get you to some people who will be absolutely thrilled to give you a chance a medical work. Will you promise not to shock me if I remove that chip so you can help me fly a ship out of here?”

S6 chirps with something that sounds like tempered enthusiasm, so Hux reaches out and twists the chip off. He waits a moment just to see– droids are tricky, some followed orders no matter what they were, some developed fierce sense of loyalty to their owners, but he doesn’t really think the droid likes it here, which means it has enough personality to maybe enjoy making a run for it. “Okay. Which ship here is hyperdrive capable and in the best condition for flight?”

The first one S6 names is a pleasure yacht, and Hux knows enough to know he may need to shoot his way out, so that won’t work. “Are any of them armed? And also, preferably, already fueled? With working life support?”

S6 beeps at him with irritation and something that sounds suspiciously like “ _ are you always this picky? _ ”

Hux lifts a brow. “Yes.” 

_ “There’s an HWK-290 modified bomber. Unsure if payload is active, but should meet other qualifications.”  _

If Hux remembered rightly, that line were converted out of freighters, so that should actually blend in even better with any spaceports he might need to visit for fuel. “Alright. Where in the hanger is it?”

The droid guides him, and using its bulk as cover he slips toward it unseen with an eye on the bay doors, which are thankfully open again, which means the  _ Steadfast _ is out of hyperspace. The hatch creaks with disuse when he opens it, dust scattering to the floor. Clearly it hadn’t been a priority in the maintenance queue. If he were a praying man, this would be a good time to pray it still actually runs, but as Hux is more of a  _ planning _ man, he slips inside with the droid and sets to making sure all the wiring looks intact. 

It looks… well. It’s physically present, which is probably the most he can ask for. “You’re sure this will fly?”

_ “Seventy-eight percent chance of successful spaceflight.” _

Hux grits his teeth. “Fine. We’ll need to be fast once I boot on the engines, the mechanics will probably notice that. Can you plot a course now?”

_ “Need access to navigation.” _

“Right.” Hux clicks on the console, keeping a wary out out the dusty viewport. It’s been a long time since he personally flew anything, but he did receive training. On a TIE fighter. Sixteen years ago. Still, he has an excellent memory, and the basics are straightforward. And he has a droid. 

Besides, the worst that can happen is them shooting him down, and really he still wins just by making Pryde exert the effort to kill him. 

That’s what he’s going to tell himself, at any rate. 

“Calculations running?”

_ “In process.” _

“Great. I don’t think they’ve-”

There’s a crashing noise outside, Hux turns, and there’s a full fucking battalion of stormtroopers charging. “Fuck. Uh–” His hands slam over the console, looking for the shield, just as blaster fire begins to rip toward the ship and there’s a flare of pain in his ribs as one hits the armorweave, but he does not have time to worry about injury. His leg stings too, feeling strange when he moves so sharply, but the shields go up. 

The do not go up in time to fix the hole through the hull. “ _ Bollocks. _ Do you have sealant in your systems, S6? Can you fix that?”

S6 grumbles that it  _ has to do everything, apparently, _ so Hux takes that as a yes as he lifts the manual controls and punches the engines toward the closing bay doors. Fortunately the ship isn’t that large, he squeaks out with inches to spare….

...into the entire damn Final Order fleet.

His heart is pounding in his ears, his voice higher than he’d like. “How long do you need?”

S6 whirs. “ _ Working on it!” _

“Can you work faster? We’re about to have quite a lot of very large guns aimed at us and–”

_ “Buckle up. Hyperdrive core has system flaw.” _

“What?” he squeaks, turning to glare at the droid. “We can’t jump?”

_ “Jump, yes. But drop to hyperspace will include centrifugal force.” _

He scrambles for a safety harness, watching the lights of the _Steadfast's_ closest ventral cannon charging. “How bad?”

_ “Potential loss of consciousness.”  _ It chirps rapidly. “ _ Nearly there. Final destination?” _

Hux swallows. He hadn’t really– he hadn’t thought past getting  _ out _ and dropping into whatever planet was nearest, he hadn’t expected to be back at Exegol in the middle of fucking unexplored space–

_ “Destination?” _

“Arkanis,” he whispers, staring at the canon as it readies, and then there’s a pull as he snaps against his harness as everything turns to moving light.

***

This time he dreams of his betrayal. Messages slipped out, carefully. Then less carefully, when he’d realized his best hope of escape was feigning death and he had to set up the obviousness of it all. They had to know there was a traitor. Ren knew, he was certain. Ren probably knew before Hux sent the first coded message, but he let Hux go on anyway. Possibly it amused him. Ren was confusing at the best of times, moreso since they’d shifted from equal, balanced rivals to… whatever Ren was now, and Hux’s gilded cage of position under Pryde. 

Even if he hadn’t been the traitor, Pryde had to know he wasn’t thrilled with his place as the one person Ren insisted attend all meetings but refused to let have any authority or input at all. They would have suspected him eventually, perhaps sent him to reconditioning. It was luck that the Resistance was so eager to launch themselves into enemy vessels that they would just up and land themselves directly in the hanger. Well, his luck and their unbelievably optimistic stupidity. Did they honestly think they could just  _ land in a hanger _ , walk in to the prison cells, and no one would notice?

He only feels mildly guilty about the Stormtroopers, but it was necessary. The Final Order fleet had to be taken apart before they could launch, which meant information about Exegol had to reach the Resistance fleet. That it was the trooper and the pilot again felt… poetic, somehow. Like the Galaxy calling in a debt, though he isn’t yet sure what is owed.

Perhaps he should have asked to go with them. That would have been easier. He could have offered his intelligence in person.

They would have probably shot him in the end, of course. Well, not the pilot. Dameron would have imprisoned him, certainly, citing war crimes or somesuch interpretation of the Republic rules on what happens when you blow up five entire planets, but he didn’t have the temperament to execute a prisoner in his care. No, it would be the first Resistance member put in charge of him who’d lost family in the Hosnian system. One of them would shoot him, or poison him, thinking it would make them feel better in some small way. That it would be a just death. If he was very, very fortunate, they would make it quick.

_ Survive _ overrode the rest. Hux had to live. Had to. He could only win by living. 

So he stayed.

“He shot you.” 

Hux’s eyes open in darkness. There’s nothing else there. Just Ren, pacing around him. Another dream, maybe, though he has no reason to be dreaming about Ren so much. It would say something concerning about him if his subconscious had taken to using Ren’s image all on its own, but that still somehow seems better than Ren finding his mind, as he’d always claimed he could do. “Pryde did, yes.”

“And you escaped.”

“Obviously.” He studies Ren more closely. The face is still unscarred and young-looking, and now he’s lost his usual armor as well, shifting to something that looks soft and dark and comfortable. “Are you wearing your clothing for rest cycle?”

Ren makes a low sound that might be a laugh. Hux has never been certain about genuine laughter, it’s not something he hears very often. Derisive sneering is far easier, that’s a sound he knows well. “Something like that.”

“Where are you?” He’s not sure why he asks. Hux is probably just talking to himself, after all. He certainly doesn’t care what Ren is doing as long as it’s not bothering him. 

“Getting to where I need to be.” He sounds calmer like this, which is another sign that this is Hux’s subconscious at work and not Ren at all. Calm and… peaceful.

“What does that mean, Ren?”

“I don’t know yet,” Ren says, reaching out to brush his fingertips over Hux’s hair, and it feels far more real than any dream. “But the Force says its right.”

“How do you know the Force is right?” he asks, but Ren is gone, and everything is dark once more.

***

When he comes to S6 is making a concerned sort of beeping sound and Hux catches “ _ inorganic material present” _ amongst the rest. “I’m awake, I’m awake.”

_ “You are being repaired?” _

It’s a question. Why is that a question? Isn't the droid doing it? “Healed, you mean? It’s possible– I put nanodroids in my system before I came to the hanger–”

_ “They repair strangely. New medical protocol?” _

Well, considering that S6 had done life support for the emperor’s charred not-corpse, referring to anything in Hux’s body processes as occurring ‘strangely’ is a bit concerning. Hux shifts, sliding the armorweave jacket open and unwrapping the tunic below.

“Oh.”

He stares at it for a while. Where the blaster had hit, both Pryde’s and the stormtrooper in the hanger, he’d assumed there would only be bruising, but it appears there was sufficient subdermal damage that the nanodroids had repaired it.

Only his edits to the core directives apparently hadn’t quite penetrated, or they really couldn’t work out what to do with organic material, because they’d  _ repaired _ him with strands of the same carbon fiber they secrete to repair weapons systems, and now his chest and ribs have dark webbing below the skin, holding him together like a net. 

He yanks the trousers down to look at the actual hole that’d been put in his thigh, and that’s woven up too, like a seamless piece of armor where his skin is meant to be. He prods it, choking out a startled noise when he can’t quite feel it, not like he should, though there is a sense of pressure somewhere deep below that makes him think the carbon has reached all the way into his femur. “Oh,” he exhales.

_ “New medical protocol?” _ S6 asks again, warbling with concern.

“Ah. No. This is. Not intentional.”

_ “Removal?” _

He blinks. “That’s probably– probably not a good idea either.” It’s not that bad, he tells himself, ignoring the background shrieking in the part of his mind that is still capable of panic. It’s just like custom armor. Custom armor that he can’t take off. But that’s– that’s fine. He just can’t get wounded again until the nanodroids wear out of his system. 

_ “Very well,” _ S6 chirps in a disbelieving tone. “ _ We have reached a waypoint and require refueling before additional jumps. Is this the location of a medical facility?” _

Hux stares out the viewport. It’s not Arkanis. This is all beige desert instead of blue, like the planet has never seen water at all–

Oh. 

They’re above Jakku.

Of course they are, because that planet might as well be cursed for all the help it’s brought him. But it is just outside the Unknown Regions, so it’s not the worst place to end up, and at least he knows they have a place to refuel, and from there he can be off to Arkanis. He’ll just go down, vanish into the crowds and the seas. 

But he doesn’t really– it stopped being his home when he was so small. He doesn’t know what sort of place it would be now. And they might know him, after all this time, or think they do. They might know his propaganda, all the films he’d made when he thought being the face of the First Order would earn him the respect of the people he was working so hard to support, to recruit for. 

He inhales. “Right. The team that will want to talk to you, they aren’t here. I’ll need to contact someone and ask where they can meet you. Is that still alright?”

The droid beeps an assent as Hux pulls up the system map. He can refuel below then drop behind one of the moons nearby, perhaps, reach out to the Resistance to find out where he can drop the droid, then continue on to… somewhere, if not Arkanis, there must be somewhere….

_ “Wideband transmission,” _ S6 informs him. “ _ From core system worlds.” _

“From the core?” They had to be using something powerful for it to reach from the Core worlds all the way out here on wideband, which meant it wasn’t an advertisement. “Play it for me.”

The voice is smooth but commanding, the sort of voice that makes one want to listen attentively, like the speaker is speaking only to one listener. “This is General Lando Calrissian of the Galactic Republic, the Resistance, and the Rebel Alliance. I know you are all aware of the threat the First Order poses after the destruction of the Hosnian System and the loss of so many bright voices for peace in the galaxy. We have now learned there are even darker forces lurking in the Unknown Regions of space. Forces that, if they were to enter the rest of the system, could wipe even more planets from the galaxy. I am not asking you to risk yourselves as a favor to the Republic, but I am asking that any who are able, any who have armed ships, anyone that is willing to stand against destruction– I’m asking you to meet me outside of Jakku. Together, we can defeat this threat and finally make the galaxy safe. Please, join me. We will assemble our fleet to travel to the Unknown Regions at 1700 galactic standard time.”

Hux glances at his console. 

One hour.

One hour, and then whatever is left of the Resistance is arriving  _ here. _

_ “Sir? Do you require medical aid?” _

“Hm?”

_ “Increase in heart rate and decrease in blood oxygen levels. Do you require medical aid?” _

Hux forces himself to breathe. “No. Thank you.” He inhales to a ten-count, exhales, and does it again. “Are any other ships responding on the wideband?”

_ “Yes. Several have responded.” _

“Any identification?”

_ “Transmission codes suggest at least four underworld syndicates, as well as the Colossus Defense Group and the Naboo Salvage Fleet. The Hapes System remains officially neutral but has authorized the launch of all vessels bearing Republic or Rebel Alliance coding from their shipyards. Several other individual ships have responded as well, most of which would seem to be mercenaries or bounty hunters or solo pilots. Others are still responding.” _

Hux nods, his heart finally balancing out as his mind begins to settle on a plan. “So. The people who will take care of you are coming here.”

_ “Will they require medical aid?” _

The droid’s beeps are so hopeful that Hux actually feels his lip twitch in an upward direction involuntarily. “They are going into battle, so that’s quite possible.”

_ “We will help? Help and then provide medical aid?” _

Hux purses his lips. They’re in a half-functional ship meant for bombing runs, not a fully armored destroyer, it’s not as if he can be much help….

Not on his own, anyway.

He grimaces. This is a hell of a time to be developing a moral compass.

“Does this ship have encrypted tightbeam?”

_ “Affirmative.” _

“Excellent. This is the encryption key. We’re aiming the beam for Fondor Shipyards, and that’s where we’ll get our  _ help _ .” He sighs. He’s probably an idiot, but he already knows his mind is made up. “And then we’ll see about providing medical aid.”

S6 wobbles so happily it falls over.

***

“Sir?” Dopheld looks worse for wear, dark hair slicked down and bags under his eyes as the holo flickers. “Are you… you’re–”

Hux can almost  _ feel _ the poor boy twitch between a desire to inquire why he’s out of uniform and the built-in compulsion to shut up and follow orders and never say anything unless directed. He runs his tongue over his teeth, tamping down the flash of anger in his belly that someone may be mistreating  _ his  _ crew. “Dopheld. You’re in drydock and I know you haven’t had any battles. Why do you look like you haven’t been sleeping?”

“Er, sir, seeing as the  _ Finalizer  _ is retired from flagship duties, sir, we’ve only been granted a skeleton crew while we’re here to maintain functionality until we’re officially renamed and reassigned.”

He reads through that in about a millisecond. “Dopheld, are you acting captain?”

“Well, technically, sir, I haven’t been promoted, but Peavey’s men prefer to- Colonel Kaplan is our acting commander since Commander Peavey was transferred to command of the  _ Ignitior _ , but he prefers to keep to the station, so-”

“So you’re taking all the duty cycles yourself?”

Mitaka nods, still wearily eager to please. “I’ve- sort of functionally promoted Unamo, so she can lead Delta shift, but– well, you always managed, sir, so–”

_ I was on enough stims to kill a rathtar _ , Hux refrains from screaming. He forces a thin smile across his face, but judging from Dopheld’s face it’s not necessarily reassuring. “Dopheld, I’m sure you’ve been doing the best you can. But you have to listen to me. The Resistance is mounting a major offensive against the Sith fleet, and from the responses they’ve gotten from other fleets I believe they’re going to win.”

Dopheld blinks. “Sir?”

“I know this is not what you expected, Dopheld, but there is opportunity here. If you and the rest of the crew join this battle, the Resistance will not chase you down afterward. They’ll be going after Peavey’s fleet next, I’m sure, because the old Imperials will do something foolish to draw attention to themselves and they won’t surrender. But if you assist the Resistance fleet now, when they need it, they’ll integrate you into–whatever it is they’re going to make of the galaxy. You will create a place for yourselves. Do you understand?”

“You want us to… mutiny, sir?”

“No mutiny so much as… leave. Leave the shipyard. The Final Order fleet has a planet killing weapon on every ship, Dopheld.  _ Every _ ship. If they’re let loose there will be no planets left. Only ships, floating forever until we run out of resources. You remember your home world, yes? At least a little? This way, you still get to live. So do they.”

Mitaka’s expression tightens. He’s clever, for all the nerves he’d developed serving under Ren’s volatile temper. He hadn’t been top of his Academy class for nothing. He nods, slowly. “Yes, sir. What do you suggest we do?”

***

They refuel planetside, because although Hux has not a single credit to his own name he does have a very good memory for numbers, including quite a few First Order banking accounts, and credits can get you  _ anything  _ if you know where to look, which means he also has the funds to pay someone to top off his payload with a few bombs that don’t date from the Imperial conflict, because he’s frankly still not sure if any of the ones that came with his ship are just going to explode on launch . As he glides back to orbit, he can see the Resistance fleet already forming. 

It’s a mess. 

Some of these ships date to the Clone War, more are old Rebel Alliance vessels. The chatter is enthusiastic, full of voices greeting each other cheerfully in some cases and pointedly stating that they won’t kill the other person until after the battle in others. A fair number have to be retired Rebel Alliance pilots and it’s anyone’s guess if they still have the reflexes to manage combat. Hux is aware a large number of them were granted their starfighters at the end of service, and it seems many of them have kept the ships up, even if they themselves have worn down with age.

He gets a ping on his sensors to warn him just before the Star Destroyers drop in, three of them, and he casually places himself between them and the Resistance fleet, just an unmoving obstacle in case anyone gets a little trigger happy.

The chatter shifts immediately, with a wide scramble for defensive positions and panicked queries about attack formations, but as he instructed Dopheld gets on the local broadcast immediately.

“Resistance fleet. We aren’t here to fight you,” he says, voice as even as it’s going to get. “We would like to join your cause, if you are willing to have us.”

There’s a brief pause and the sound of a Wookie grumble in the background as General Calrissian responds. “Your ship codes read as the  _ Finalizer _ , aren’t you a First Order flagship? Why should we believe you want to help?”

“The  _ Finalizer  _ is decommissioned, sir.” Hux can almost hear Mitaka swallowing, pushing his nervousness down, but he pulls through. “We’re calling ourselves  _ Armistice. _ ”

“Well.” Calrissian pauses. “I suppose we’re not really in a position to turn down aid, but if you pull any tricks, you realize you’re going to be shredded by our ships inside your own shields.”

“Understood, sir. And, if it helps….” Mitaka is smiling, Hux thinks.  _ Think of your bargaining chips, _ he’d told the now-Captain.  _ Know what you’re willing to trade. _ “We’d be happy to discuss terms afterward. We have no interest in continued hostilities, and I’m sure you have quite a lot of interest in learning where the First Order’s Dreadnought fleet is currently stationed.”

There’s another not-so-hushed Wookie noise and Calrissian lets out a low laugh. “Ballsy. Alright. You can take that one up with Dameron. Otherwise, welcome to the fight,  _ Armistice,  _ and your other friends there too.”

S6 beeps beside him. “ _ Plan worked?” _

“Yes,” Hux exhales, feeling like he’s caught a full breath for the first time in thirty years. “I think it did. Now let’s go try not to die for a little while longer, shall we?”

***

The battle is a chaotic mess. 

Hux looks a few times as he rather vindictively aims his bombs for the command decks of the destroyers around the edges of the fight (this ship is nowhere near fast enough to mix it up in the middle), but he doesn’t see Ren’s TIE anywhere, nor any other TIE pilots of the skill level that would suggest Ren has finally run out of backups of his reinforced Special Forces model and switched to a generic.  _ Interesting.  _ His eyes drift down to the flickers of planet he can see through the clouds below. The fool had said he wanted to kill Palpatine, didn’t he?

As he’s diving under one destroyer to keep cover from the TIES, flipped over with his head toward the planet, he looks down again just as blue lightning shoots up and rips through him. The systems of his ship flicker, even S6 screams, and  _ pain  _ shoots through him, blindingly bright. The distant part of his mind that has been too-long trained to keep functioning no matter what manner of pain his body is in calmly rattles off statistics about carbon and electrical conductivity, but it doesn’t do much to dissuade from the smell of singing flesh in his nose as the skin around his carbon-repaired tissue  _ burns. _

His throat strains in a way that suggests he’s screaming but he can’t hear it over the sparks.

Abruptly, the surge ends, though it still takes his systems a second to recalibrate, drifting upside down toward the planet as gravity tries to take them. It’s all he can do to reach out and smack the stabilizers back on, stopping their freefall even though he still feels like he’s possibly having a heart attack. 

_ “Med-med-medical aid?” _

S6 seems to be rebooting alright, albeit a little stuttery, and he nods, a little breathless and foggy. “Yes, thank you.” Normally he’d ask what the droid is injecting him with, especially since Hux was far more likely in the past to just stim himself up than actually report to med bay, but the pain is sufficient enough that he isn’t particularly worried about it as long as it  _ stops. _

His body shudders as whatever it is enters his system, but adrenaline keeps him functional as he begins to get collision warnings for incoming TIEs and evades, veering up and up and back over the destroyer fleet. The Resistance team has been screaming on the general comms, shouting for anyone who can to go after the planet destroying cannons on each of the destroyers.

At which point he remembers he’s stolen a  _ bomber. _

“How much payload do we have left?”

_ “Six battalion level incendiary bombs, but their cores are over forty years old. Is your face supposed to do that?” _

He barks a laugh. True, he must look a little manic, but he supposes that isn’t really new, he just held it in better before. “Let me worry about my face. Prime the payload. This should be interesting.” 

The fleet sinks when the Resistance team destroys the flagship, and Hux’s payload is launched by then, six streaks of flame turning the precisely targeted cannons of six separate destroyers to ash. He watches them fall to the planet. Some of them will live through the impact, some will try to run. He almost hopes Pryde has survived, as unlikely as it is– he saw the command bridge explode. He’d really wanted to end that particular menace himself.

There is cleanup, first, before they can celebrate. Dameron welcomes the heads of the various forces who’d responded and any “independent operators” interested to come talk on the largest of the Resistance fleet vessels, one that can handle taking all the smallest ships in its hanger and either top off their fuel for their jumps or carry them back to more familiar space so they don't need to make the calculations themselves. In the meantime, more Resistance forces are going down to the planet to check for survivors from the Final Order. 

Hux would vanish, if it were just him, but he gave his word to the droid, so he lands in the hanger bay with all the other bounty hunters and riffraff that he supposes he’s a part of now. No more General. Not if he wants to keep his head. 

He slips into the ship’s refresher, planning just to pull the cowl carefully around his hair to hide the color, and stops short.

There’s black carbon woven in faint lines from his neck up to his cheekbones. Yanking his jacket open, he can see the same lines across his chest and down his biceps, radiating out from his blaster wound and down his belly, and another branch drifting up one hip from his leg. He stares at them, blinking rapidly.

_ Lightning burn. Branching leaf pattern.  _ S6 lingers outside the refresher, wobbling with a concerned air.  _ The electrical impulse reactivated your nanodroids, and they began repairs to the burn before I could administer bacta and decrease your heartrate.  _

“I see.” He exhales. 

This is not a bad thing, not really. He doesn’t look like himself. Not at all. In fact… he can dramatize the effect even further.

He reaches for the antique vibrating aesthetic blade attached to the refresher wall.

***

The sides of his head freshly shorn and the rest puffed up into a sleek curve that extends from the front of his hairline back, Hux still pulls the cowl over his head as he follows the droid down the ramp, limping despite his cane. 

_ “Who to speak to?” _

He looks around, frowning until he spots a blur of white and orange followed by a slower flash of blue and white. “There. The BB unit. That’s Dameron’s, and as far as I can tell he’s somehow more or less in charge, so his droid will know who to have you talk to.”

_ “BB unit. Acknowledged.”  _ S6 wobbles back and forth. “ _ Will you stay until I report?” _

Hux lifts a brow. “If you like. And– I’d prefer it if you left me out of it. Whatever you tell them. Please.”

_ “Yes. I can do that.”  _ S6 whirs off toward the other droids, and Hux watches as it approaches, old and clunky even compared to the older R2 unit that looks like someone’s actually bothered to keep it in perfect, shining working order. The three of them pull into a cluster of beeps and warbles and then roll away, probably to look for Dameron.

Something shifts behind him, and when he turns there’s a rustle of black that’s not-quite-there in the edge of his vision.

He furrows his brow, following the figure back into the ship. “Ren?” The fool himself sits in the navigator’s seat, feet up on the pilot’s chair. Hux stops in front of him, arms folded across his chest, glaring with all the might he has ever glared with. “Well. Did you do it, then?”

“Yes.” Ren sounds… slightly further away than he should, and also disturbingly peaceful, still in his comfy clothes and his hair hanging soft and cleaner than Hux has ever seen it about his face. His eyes are clear and bright and he hasn’t even gotten out his ridiculous saber to threaten to smash any of Hux’s consoles in with. 

“And?”

Ren shrugs. “And it’s done.”

Hux marches forward, moving to knock Ren’s legs off his damn seat and his hand just– passes through. There’s something, but it’s not quite– it’s just a brush. And his hand passed through.

He blinks, staring at his own fingers, then turning his glare back to Ren as the pieces slowly slot together. There’s only a few possibilities here, and Hux is fairly certain that if he were going to have a psychotic break he would have done so years ago, so…. “Are you dead?”

“A Jedi doesn’t die, really–”

“But you weren’t a Jedi,  _ really. _ ” Hux can’t help it. He laughs, laughing harder when Ren actually looks mildly offended that his death is apparently  _ hilarious,  _ but that’s all Hux has to work with. He’d done it. He’d survived them all, even Ren, regardless of whatever Jedi nonsense he’s up to now. “Oh, well done. You did something heroically sacrificial, I’m sure, if you’re calling yourself a Jedi now. Is that how it works? If you sacrifice enough and then die being what we’ll generously call  _ brave _ instead of  _ stupid,  _ I’m sure, you still get to go to the Jedi afterlife?”

“Well.” Ren looks less affronted the more Hux talks, that mischievous glimmer he’d only glimpsed from time to time back when they were equals peeking through. “That wasn’t the only reason.”

“Hmph. So why are you here? Because if you’re haunting me you should realize that I will spend the entire time telling you the story of every failure you’ve ever had, and-”

Ren reaches out and prods his finger against Hux’s chest, right where the blaster should have killed him. He  _ feels it _ , despite the coating of carbon fibers that’s woven there now. “I told you. You opened yourself to the Force. The door never really closed, Armitage.”

“And is this a punishment from the Force, you stalking me about?”

“If you didn’t want me to be here, Armitage, I wouldn’t be.”

Hux’s jaw clicks closed, cutting off the biting comment he was working on about whether or not Ren can just float through walls now. He works his tongue over his teeth, considering. Ren had always been such a point of contention for him, and when he’d become Supreme Leader he’d… changed. The violence had grown worse, and it seemed like he couldn’t work out how to handle Hux at all, wanting to keep him as close as possible but at the same time out of reach. 

Did Armitage want him around? He wouldn’t say so.

But he had enjoyed Ren’s company, back when they were starting out on the  _ Finalizer.  _ He’d enjoyed the challenge of Ren and his chronic flouting of First Order protocol. 

Yes, perhaps he’d  _ liked _ him. A little.

“Fine. If _the Force_ says so. But what are you-”

There’s footsteps on the ramp, and Hux leans on the cane as he turns, already fingering for the hilt of his dagger just in case. He freezes when he sees who it is.

“Excuse me? I’m looking for the owner of, uh, R5-S6? He didn’t actually give us a name, so….”

Poe Dameron looks a little worse for wear, still in his pilot gear. Hux gently uncurls his fingers from the dagger, hoping the ship interior is still too dark to really give a good look at his face. “Owner’s a strong word, but that’s me, yes.”

“He’s telling us a very interesting story about evacuating the Death Star, and we’d like permission to download everything relevant he’s got about that and the flight paths they took after. He said he’d feel more comfortable if you okayed it. That alright with you?” 

Hux swallows. S6 hadn’t given him up, even though he could have, easily, and still gotten the position he’d wanted in a med bay. “As long as S6 is fine with it. It won’t damage him?”

“No, no– he’s a hearty little guy, he’ll be fine.”

“Very well, then.”

“Thanks for turning up, by the way. Saw what you did with your bombs. That was helpful. Don’t see many heavy hitters like that these days.” Dameron steps closer and holds out a hand. “Poe Dameron. I think I’m technically in charge of this fleet.”

Oh. He hadn’t come up with a  _ name, _ that was foolish, everyone has names except Stormtroopers and even they come up with ones of their own–

“Makashi,” Ren whispers behind him.

“Makashi,” he says out loud, folding Dameron’s hand to his own. “And you’re technically in charge of a winning fleet. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Dameron’s eyes skim his face for just a fraction too long, eyes widening briefly before he schools them back to normal. Hux watches, debating grasping his dagger again, but Dameron just nods, stepping away again. “Anyway, it’ll just be a little bit to do the download, and S6 wanted to make sure you wouldn’t go anywhere before he came back.”

Hux smiles, thinly. “I’ll be right here.”

Dameron turns, hand on the hatch frame. “I hear those three Star Destroyers are giving us some good intel. Seems like someone left a pretty alright kid in charge of them, and they’re gonna help us go after the rest of the First Order, which is nice of them. Lots of people from the First Order are getting real helpful these days. You know anything about that?”

“I’m afraid not.” Hux’s heart twists, slightly.  _ Gratitude. _ Another emotion he doesn’t care for, but Dameron is, maybe, actually letting him go even though he must know who Hux is. Etiquette says he ought to offer something in return. His nature says it better be something he already wants. He can live with that. “But if you happen to need a bomber for any of those fights against them, I could be convinced to rebuild my payload.”

A grin quirks up at the edge of Dameron’s lip. “Yeah. We can work with that. Let me know if you need any ordinance.”

Dameron hustles back toward his people and Hux watches from the shadows above the ramp, leaning on his cane as Ren’s shadow shifts from the cockpit. “Makashi?”

“It’s High Galactic. Or Old Jedi, to some.”

“And its meaning? I trust you didn’t just get me to call myself something foolish.”

“It’s a combat form. For lightsabers. Broadly, it refers to a style in which you exploit your opponent’s attacks to force them to create a weakness, and then strike them while they’re most vulnerable.”

Hux weighs that. “Is that a wordy way to refer to a counterstrike?”

“If you like.”

He lifts a brow, glancing over his shoulder. “Is that flattery, Ren?”

Ren’s standing so close, right behind him, and Hux can feel the slight warmth even though he’s not quite there. “You are deadly and no one ever sees you coming until it’s too late. It’s  _ accurate _ , Armitage.”

It’s not bad. It won’t make a bad callsign, either, for whatever he’s going to do next. Well, what he’s going to do next  _ after _ he finds a civilized enough world for good bank access, because there are several First Order accounts in need of draining. He lets a smile cross his lips as he taps the closest console to change the ship’s generic identifiers from a string of numbers to the  _ Riposte. _

“You like it,” Ren murmurs, that same warmth drifting low on Hux’s back.

“You are fishing for compliments, and I find it tolerable.”

_ “Are you talking to yourself?” _

S6 is at the bottom of the ramp, wiggling. Hux shrugs. “Apparently I’m talking to someone, I just don’t think you’ll be able to see him. But he’ll be flying with me. I think.” He glances over his shoulder to see Ren nod as the droid makes another beep that means something like  _ I don’t understand but I accept your human strangeness. _ “It’s complicated. You needn’t mind it. What’s the verdict for you? Do they have a medical team you can work with?”

_ “I have both mechanical and medical experience.” _

“Yes.”

_ “There are carbon strands on the veins by your heart and through your femoral artery. If you require repair, you are now in need of both mechanical and medical experience.” _

Hux blinks very, very slowly, because if he doesn’t there’s a vague threat somewhere in his core that his eyes may begin to experience moisture. “You want to come with me?”

_ “Affirmative.” _

“It won’t be very pretty. I’m not even sure what we’re going to do other than a few runs with the Resistance, though I suppose the done thing at this point is usually bounty hunting. Don’t know how much of that we can manage with a bad leg and a bomber.”

_ “You’re quite clever for a human, I’m sure you’ll think of something.” _

“I agree with the droid,” Ren murmurs, lips turned up with amusement. “Clever for a human.”

S6 whirs, looking sort of in Ren’s direction with confusion. “ _ There is. What. What am I detecting?” _

Hux sighs and limps back toward the cockpit. “Oh, no idea, really. We’re all not-quite dead here, anyway, just in different ways, and you’re both ganging up on me already.” If the droid can sense Ren… well, Hux might not really understand the Force, but that seems. Improbable. For someone who is supposedly kind of dead. 

He studiously ignores them as Ren crouches down and taps S6 with the pad of his finger, right in his primary data sensor, and the droid makes a noise that sounds alarmingly like a giggle, because he simply does not have the energy to work out how any of this is actually happening. “Now. I think we ought to see to repairs on this ship first.” He flips open his maps and runs through his mental inventory of where First Order credits will still be worth their weight in full service treatment at a shipyard, at least until the fleet is fully eradicated. “How do you feel about Corellia?”

**Author's Note:**

> So I basically word-vommed this whole thing out in four days after seeing Rise of Skywalker. I don't think I've written anything so fast in my life and I kind of need a nap now, but I hope you enjoyed it! Maybe it will help you with processing things from the movie as it has helped me. Much love to you, my fellow Kylux and Hux fans. <3 <3 <3


End file.
